And that’s why the Mississippi and Alabama primaries tomorrow could truly matter — if, that is, Romney can find a way to win one of the two.

Despite the fact that polling in both states seems to suggest a muddle between Romney, Gingrich and Santorum, no one expects the former Massachusetts governor to win either race. After all, Romney has yet to win a Southern state where Santorum and Gingrich also appeared on the ballot (sorry, Florida, we don’t consider you a Southern state) and the conservative electorates of Mississippi and Alabama don’t seem like the place where his winning streak might start.

A victory by Romney, which, weirdly, he predicted in Alabama today, would then be a genuine surprise — an upsetting of expectations and conventional wisdom that could reset the governing dynamic of the contest.

Here’s why.

There’s something in human nature that loves surprises — even as they become more and more rare in our information-overloaded society.

The same goes for politics. Due to the proliferation of public opinion polling over the past decade or so, the number of true surprises in politics has dropped to almost zero — making them a rare and powerful commodity when they do happen.

Go back to January 2008. Then Illinois Sen. Barack Obama wins the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses convincingly. Polling — and conventional wisdom — suggests that he will sweep to victory in the New Hampshire primary five days later over then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and, in so doing, clinch the Democratic nomination.

But, Clinton won — a victory that fundamentally re-shaped the Democratic race from an expected Obama landslide into a jump ball. (Bad — and mixed! -- metaphor alert!)

Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire, in and of itself, wasn’t all that amazing. She was a senator from the Northeast and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had worked the Granite State tirelessly during his own campaigns. That she won when all signs pointed to her losing is what made the story such a big, well, story.

While a Romney victory in Alabama or Mississippi wouldn’t be as large a surprise as Clinton winning New Hampshire was, it would qualify as an expectations-altering sort of win. Gone would be the “he can’t win in the South” storyline. Gone would be the “conservatives don’t like him” narrative.

They would both be washed away — for the moment if not forever — thanks to the power of political surprise.

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Chris CillizzaChris Cillizza wrote “The Fix,” a politics blog for The Washington Post. He left The Post in April 2017.